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Earlier this year, official figures showed that rough sleeping in England had risen for the sixth successive year.

The data showed that 4,134 people slept on the street in 2016, an increase of 16% on the previous year’s figure of 3,569, and more than double the 2010 figure. Many of those enduring long-term homelessness have complex and multiple needs related to mental health or addiction. While this is a growing problem in the UK, housing exclusion is by no means confined to these shores. As we reported in April, there is growing evidence of an alarming increase in homelessness across Europe.

But one European country is bucking this trend. Since 2008, the Finnish government has been working with housing agencies to reduce long term homelessness and improve prevention services. The adopted approach, called ‘Housing First’, has had a big impact, achieving a 35% fall in long term homelessness over seven years. Finland is now the only country in the European Union where homelessness continues to fall.

Housing First: what it means

Housing First is not a uniquely Finnish approach to tackling homelessness, nor is it a new idea. The practice began in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It’s based on the principle that housing is a basic human right, and turns on its head the notion that vulnerable people are only ‘housing ready’ once they have begun to engage with support services.

As the name suggests, Housing First means providing vulnerable people with permanent, affordable housing, and then offering specialised support to ensure that they don’t return to sleeping on the streets. However, acceptance of that support is not a condition for access to housing. The approach has been adopted in various American cities, as well as parts of Australia, Canada, France and Japan. But it’s in Finland that Housing First has achieved some of its most impressive results.

Housing First: how it works

One of the key players in Finland’s Housing First strategy is the Y-Foundation, an association of local authorities, church, construction, trade union and health organisations that has been supporting homeless people for more than thirty years. Starting in 2008, the foundation converted homeless shelters in Finland’s biggest cities into rental housing. At the same time, the government set targets for local authorities to build new flats in mixed housing developments. The programme is backed by money from government grants and the proceeds from Finland’s not-for-profit gambling monopoly.

Housing First: why it works

The cost estimate for Finland’s Housing First programme is €78 million. But Juha Kaakinen, chief executive of the Y-Foundation, has no doubts about its value for money. In an interview with Inside Housing, he explained:

“It’s not only good social policy; it has a big safety and security angle, as the more homeless people there are on the streets, the more unsafe the city is. And there’s an economic argument, too: taking care of these people is a good investment.”

He estimates that taking each homeless person off the streets saves social, health and emergency services around €15,000 a year.

Housing First in the UK

Homelessness charities in Britain have been taking great interest in the success of Housing First in Finland.

“It’s a stunning result,” Matt Downie, director of policy and external affairs at Crisis, told Inside Housing. “They used to have a bigger homelessness problem than we have.” But he was less sure whether the programme could be replicated here. “We’ve got a system that is the exact opposite of Housing First. In Finland they made a strategic choice; that allowed them to change everything.”

Even so, Housing First is already gaining ground around the UK:

Scotland
A pilot project in Glasgow by Turning Point Scotland was the first Housing First project to be implemented in the UK. Between 2011 and 2013, the project provided mainstream social housing and 24/7 floating support to 22 individuals who were homeless, aged 18 or over, and involved in substance misuse. An evaluation of the project by Heriot Watt University found that none of the tenants were evicted from their flat and the majority of participants retained their tenancies.

WalesThe Welsh Government has announced that it is considering moves towards a Housing First policy. The communities and children secretary for Wales told the Welsh Assembly in April 2017 that he would be reviewing homelessness prevention in Wales, and is exploring Housing First initiatives.

Northern Ireland
Working with the Depaul youth homelessness charity, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive funded a Housing First pilot scheme in Belfast. An evaluation of the 18-month programme reported a number of positive results, including a high rate of tenancy retention, improvements in participants’ self-care, confidence and living skills, and reductions in their dependence on drugs and alcohol. A further Housing First programme has since been established in Derry.

England
In 2015, the University of York published findings from a study of nine Housing First services in England. The authors reported high levels of success in reducing long-term and repeated homelessness, with 74% of service users successfully housed for one year or more. There were also significant improvements in the physical and mental health of Housing First tenants and high levels of satisfaction. The Centre for Social Justice has called on the UK government to set up a £110m national Housing First programme, arguing that the investment would save money and lives.

Final thoughts

There is no quick fix to the problem of homelessness, but Finland has shown that adopting new ways of thinking about the problem can virtually eradicate rough sleeping. As Juha Kaakinen observes:

They may have a top speed of under 50 kilometres per hour, but driverless buses are moving into the fast lane of transport innovation. In recent months, cities around the world have been trialling automated bus services:

Driverless buses constructed by French technology firm Navya have started appearing on the roads of France, Switzerland, and Australia.

The “WePod”, developed by Delft Technical University has been carrying passengers to, from and around the campus of Wageningen University & Research centre in the Netherlands.

Auto-mobility

While Google have been grabbing most of the headlines to do with driverless vehicles, the French technology firm of Navya has been designing and producing autonomous cars since 2014. In October 2015, Navya launched its ARMA bus.

The ARMA does not require any driver or specific infrastructure, and has onboard sensors to avoid collisions. The electrically-powered vehicle is also environmentally friendly; its batteries can last from 5 to 13 hours, depending on the configuration and the traffic conditions.

The ARMA buses are not designed to replace mass-transit networks. With a capacity of no more than 15 passengers and speeds of no greater than 50 km per hour, the ARMA buses are designed to cover short distances, following distinct routes that avoid heavy traffic. However, they could prove ideal for locations such as airports and conference centres. Since the beginning of September, the ARMA buses have been carrying passengers on ten-minute journeys through the futuristic Confluence district of Lyon. And Navya shuttle buses are also ferrying workers and visitors around the EDF power plant in Civaux, The driverless service replaced a diesel bus, cutting waiting time down from 15 to 5 minutes. EDF estimates the time savings could result in as much as 3 million euros’ worth of extra productivity.

Navya Driverless Shuttle Bus,EDF, Civaux. Photo: Navya-Technology.com

Going Dutch

Driverless buses called “WePods” have taken to the public roads as part of a pilot project in the Dutch province of Gelderland.

The project managers see numerous possibilities for the autonomous vehicles, such as on-demand pick-up services, filling public transport gaps in rural areas and provision of garbage collections. Ultimately, driverless buses could help solve urban parking problems and increase road capacity. And because around 70% of public transport costs are due to personnel costs, the WEpods could also save transport authorities money.

Addressing concerns

Naturally, concerns have been raised about the safety of driverless vehicles. The truth is that no type of transport is 100% safe. Even though driverless vehicles have sensors, cameras, radar and lasers to prevent collisions, accidents caused by human-driven vehicles will still happen.

However, the designers of driverless vehicles are adopting a safety-first culture. In many of the vehicles, data is stored in the equivalent of an aircraft’s “black box”, enabling lessons to be learned from incidents taking place during the journey.

Fast forward

The trend towards driverless buses shows no sign of slowing down. In 2015, a self-driving bus took passengers on a 20-mile journey through the Chinese city of Zhengzhou. In Kista, north-west of Stockholm, members of the public were invited to test-ride driverless buses as part of the town’s April 2016 mobility week. And in August 2016, trials of automated buses took place in the Finnish capital of Helsinki.

With regard to automated transport, it seems that the stuff of science fiction is fast becoming a matter of fact.

If you’ve enjoyed this blog post, you might also like some of our other posts focusing on transport:

When Edinburgh’s new tram system opens this week it will be three years overdue and millions of pounds over budget. But, in spite of the delays, spiralling costs and contractual difficulties, the Edinburgh system is joining a wider urban light rail renaissance.

Since the 1990s, municipalities around the world have been investing more in light rail transit systems: Continue reading →

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” (Jane Jacobs, The death and life of great American cities, 1961)

by Morwen Johnson

Last week’s devastating fire in Glasgow School of Art showed the emotional attachment which communities can feel for buildings. The affection felt for the ‘Mack’ wasn’t solely because of its A-listed status or historic value, it was because the building was part of the fabric of the city and many people over the years have been touched by it. Continue reading →